Being a freshman can be lonely.
I didn’t have one moment to myself.
I was worried that my freshman year would be full of FOMO and lonely Fridays. Instead, I was doing Just Dance at 3 AM (our downstairs neighbors hate us—rightfully so), getting kicked out of a house show for not minding our own business, eating breakfast hungover only to recharge to spend another night out, and constantly holding someone’s hair while they threw up. In retrospect, it was the quintessential first year of college. All of the above four had one thing in common. They were all done with my three roommates. We spent the better half of a year living in a 319-square-foot room with no privacy or secrets. It took us approximately one week for us to reveal every ugly side of ourselves and decide to settle in the comfortable knowledge of being loved because of your flaws instead of despite. We were put together randomly, and I was walking into a year of living with strangers with no idea what the lottery of roommate selection would give me.
With most friends, you get a chance to be your best self. You get to present a version of yourself more suited for the public. With people you live with, you don’t get that reprieve. To say we know each other well is an understatement. There is probably nobody else I’m more comfortable with. It’s the type of friendship that when hanging out with a guy, all of our first thoughts have been “God, I can’t wait to tell the girls about this.”
One of my favorite memories this year was the aforementioned house show a few weeks ago. We had decided to spend a night just to be together, all four of us. We had been planning it for weeks, affectionately calling it the “625 rapture,” after our room number and the state of disarray we would hopefully end up in. We got the house show details, and got ready in beach-themed outfits (we missed the memo that the dress code was a light suggestion people ignore while we adhered to the theme). After about 10 minutes, we end up having to flee, cackling and triumphant.
The only worse thing than being nosy is living with three other nosy girls. Somehow we will always get ourselves involved. We’ve spent the better half of the year eavesdropping and sending the least subtle eye signals across the room so I should have known that our ability to not stay in our lane would get us into trouble.
It started with us walking up and seeing this guy lying down in the front of the house. Our resident med student, Aisha, does her usual inquisition of anyone who seems on the urge of needing help, while the other three of us make conversation with his girlfriend. Suddenly in the middle of our conversation, we see some guy bumble over to tell us that we were causing a scene. Again, we were huddled in a corner, talking and laughing and keeping to ourselves. No scene was being caused, but this man was Very Important and Must Be Listened To.
I remember letting out an audible groan at the sight of the painfully pretentious man that reeked of John Mayer riffs and skimming Kurt Vonnegat’s literature to recite pieces in front of girls in the hope of getting a number. I mean, the man came out with a mug in his hand and an air of self-righteousness that almost choked us. He starts talking to her the way most grown men talk to teenage girls, condescending in a way that all at once makes you feel ashamed, unsure, and angry. I hated this guy.
Over this year, my roommates and I have realized we are more often on the same wavelength of thinking than not, so it was no surprise that we all clocked this Matty Healy copycat and decided to stick around. Next thing I know, Drunk Guy’s Girlfriend and Mr. IPA are getting into an argument. He starts yelling and squaring up on this girl a foot shorter, and almost a decade younger and we immediately assume our positions like we were putting on a play we had been rehearsing for a week. I kneel down to Drunk Guy getting him to stay down because we all knew his involvement would make the situation so much worse. In a strange turn of events, DeeDee (our resident hothead) is physically restraining Chelsy (our resident voice of reason) from lunging at this guy, while Aisha is trying to reason with both sides before it all comes to blows—a fight we could have won in our sleep.
Drunk Guy starts stirring and trying to get up so he can try, and the only way I could get him to stay down was by pointing at my roommates. The sight of three angry girls standing in front of his girlfriend yelling at this guy to go away was enough reassurance to get this man down. Mr. IPA started recording us while saying things like “these crazy drunk girls” and we fled with Drunk Guy and his girlfriend, laughing so hard my stomach started to ache.
Getting into trouble with my roommates has been the biggest joy of college so far. There’s nobody I would trust more to go into battle with, no matter against a full-fledged army or a pretentious 30-something. It’s a privilege to be known and loved by them, and I am so grateful I got to do my freshman year with them.
College is a huge navigation into stepping into the world of being a young woman. It’s scary and demanding and awkward and fun and awful. It’s a terrifying world to navigate on your own. The biggest lesson I’ve had to learn is to rely on other people, especially the women you surround yourself with. The world can be unkind to teenage girls, so it’s even more important to be kind to each other. My roommates have been my confidants, a sounding board, and the kick in my ass I need to get a grip and be better to myself—even when it’s hard to hear. Invest in your friendships. I ended up living with the best of them and I’m forever thankful.